


Letters from an Occupant

by Hokuto



Series: (Nice Dream): The Gaps In Between [13]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Minor Character(s), Missing Scene, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 12,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in Konoha during the timeskip of "(Nice Dream)," from various points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zaku and Haku

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added as necessary, mostly because I'm too lazy to tag all 18 scenes' worth of them at once. XD These are spread out all over the timeskip, but will be posted in chronological order, and the first six or so are all within the first year.
> 
> ... yeah, they're also mostly really short, hence getting shoved together in a chaptered fic instead of being posted separately. Sorry about that. They're all finished, at least, so I'll be updating this on a regular MWF schedule.

Zaku had given up keeping track of the guards, since every time he'd tried to count them he had come up with the answer _too many_ , at least with his chakra sealed; it burned like hell to have been caught, especially by some stupid brat, and without any obvious way to escape, he mostly just sat in his cell and gnawed on his pride and refused to tell the interrogation squad a damn thing. He didn't register the new person's presence outside his cell until a light voice said, "Excuse me - your name is Zaku, isn't it?"

He looked up and through the cell's thick criss-crossed bars. There was a girl with long brown hair standing outside, dressed like a civilian with a brace on one arm and no forehead protector. He scowled. Had to be a trick. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Haku," the girl said, smiling at him for some reason. "My friend Naruto asked me to come visit you."

"What for?" Zaku stared at her, because why not; he had nothing better to look at, and anyway he didn't often to get a chance to see civilians crazy enough to walk straight into ninja prisons just to talk to prisoners, even with guards hanging around. Then again, what else would he expect from a friend of someone like that loud-mouthed idiot?

"Well, I think he felt a bit bad about capturing you and then not having a chance to see you again," said Haku. "He's not an average shinobi... For his sake, at least, I wanted to see you and make sure that you and your teammate are all right. A cell isn't the most comfortable place, is it?"

He shrugged. "I've been in worse." Shit, that made it sound like Orochimaru-sama had kept him in a cell. "Not in Sound!"

"Ah, that's good to hear." She smiled again, but there was a hint of frost behind it this time. "Naruto and I would both be upset to hear that you were being treated poorly, whether it was here or somewhere else..."

Okay, this _had_ to be some kind of trap; nobody buddied up to prisoners just because their friend asked them to. Zaku shut his mouth and glared at Haku, but it didn't seem to have any effect on the girl, who just said, "I don't want to be a bother, so I should probably go - would you mind if I visited you again? I think Naruto would be disappointed if I didn't."

Zaku opened his mouth to say _Hell no, stay away_ , and what came out was, "Do whatever the hell you want." Shit. Why had he said that? This stupid place was getting to him.

Haku beamed at him. "All right, I'll come back tomorrow," she said. "Please stay well, Zaku-san."

Zaku waited until after she was gone to punch the wall.


	2. Tenzo

Tenzo stared out of the window of the Hokage's office with a highly specific feeling of dismay that he'd hoped never to feel again. Beside him, the Hokage chuckled and said, "Now there's a sight I haven't seen for a while... Rather artistic, isn't it?"

It was that, Tenzo thought; whoever had painted the faces of the four Hokage with dizzy eyes, drunk blushes, and drooping mustaches had done an exceptionally fine job. The monument hadn't been vandalized so beautifully since Uzumaki Naruto had graduated from the academy - which, since Naruto was currently out of the village, left Tenzo wondering just who the hell could have done it. Not that it mattered, because whoever was responsible, it would be ANBU stuck with finding them and half the work of cleaning it up. Specifically, whichever ANBU member had the misfortune of being the Hokage's special assistant that day, which on this particular day meant Tenzo.

The Hokage chuckled again, startling Tenzo out of his unhappy thoughts. "I have a feeling that I know who the culprit is," Sarutobi said, "but for form's sake, you had better go investigate."

"Do you think it was Konohamaru, sir?" The Hokage's grandson was nearly as much of a prankster as Naruto had been, but the kid usually stuck to badly executed ambushes.

"No," said the Hokage, "this is a bit beyond Konohamaru's artistic talents, I think... But I don't want to bias your investigation, Tenzo-kun. Good luck."

Picking up on the dismissal, Tenzo bowed and left.

Long practice tracking down Uzumaki Naruto meant that it was only a couple of hours before Tenzo returned to the Hokage's office with a stone-faced Uchiha Sasuke, who scowled when the Hokage gave him a grandfatherly smile. "It seems that you've picked up a few things from Naruto," the Hokage said. "Including a penchant for art, perhaps?"

Sasuke didn't answer, and Tenzo sighed mentally. Why didn't he ever draw special assistant duty on a normal day, when there was nothing to worry about but raids from Kirigakure?

"I'm sure you must miss your team very much," the Hokage was saying, "but taking Naruto's place as the village troublemaker is going a little too far, don't you think?"

"It wasn't me," Sasuke said, which was one of the most bald-faced lies Tenzo had ever heard, and he'd heard a lot of Kakashi-sempai's excuses over the years.

"Really," said the Hokage, a suppressed smile in his voice. "Then who would you say the real culprit was?"

"I don't know," Sasuke said. "Maybe a missing-nin did it."

Tenzo started to smile behind his mask, but stopped when he saw that the Hokage wasn't reacting to what had to have been a joke. Sasuke had still been scrubbing paint out of his shirt when Tenzo had found him.

After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, the Hokage sighed and said, "I think I'll trust Tenzo-kun on this one. Now, under normal circumstances your punishment would be decided by your jounin teacher, but since you're already here and Kakashi could be anywhere in the village - all things considered, I suppose I'll let you off with helping Tenzo-kun clean up the monument. Without using ninjutsu."

"Fine," Sasuke muttered, and Tenzo stifled a sigh. That meant no ninjutsu for him, either.

"There's just one more thing," the Hokage said. "Tell me, how are you and your brother getting along?"

Sasuke's eyes widened, then narrowed into a ferocious glare. "Fine," he said, sounding anything but. "Just fine. Are you done yet?"

The Hokage sighed again. "Yes, that's all," he said. "You're dismissed. You can get cleaning supplies from the academy, they have a stockpile left over from cleaning up after Naruto - be sure to get enough for Tenzo as well."

Sasuke nodded once and left, letting the door bang shut; Tenzo considered following him, but on the other hand, he might as well let Sasuke get a head start on the cleaning.

The Hokage was watching the door with a distant look. "Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision," he said, "letting Itachi - well, what's done is done. Please keep an eye on him while you're cleaning; I don't think Sasuke is the type to try and get out of an assignment, but I'm a little concerned about him."

"Of course, Hokage-sama."

The real shame, Tenzo thought as he headed for the Hokage monument, was that he'd have to keep his mask on; a good scary face or two might speed things up...


	3. Sasuke and Anko

Sasuke was elbow-deep in disgusting dishes and steaming dishwater on a hot summer day, and Anko had the nerve to be sprawled out on the living-room floor right by the fan, reading some kind of comic book. He looked at her over his shoulder and said, "Can't you help for once?"

"Nope," she said, flipping to the next page of the comic. "I make it a point of pride never to get too involved in the personal affairs of my sex buddies, up to and including dishes, little brothers, and punishments little brothers earn for doing stupid crap."

"Seriously? You practically live here already." Sasuke glared down at the pot he was trying to scrub clean, which had a crude "MA" scratched into the handle. "Some of these are _your_ dishes! Why don't you just move in?" _And wash your own damn dishes_ , he didn't add, though not for lack of wanting to.

"The mighty Anko does as she pleases," Anko said, "and it pleases her to live alone as a free woman! A woman needs her personal space, yanno."

"So it also pleases the mighty Anko to live like a slob?" Sasuke muttered, and abruptly had an arm around his neck and knuckles grinding into the top of his head.

"What's that you say, brat? You want to follow the will of mighty Anko and do her bidding? Should the mighty Anko print you out some worksheets so you can do her bidding more easily? I'll get right on that!"

"Get off! Get off me, damnit!"

Fortunately for Sasuke, Itachi never asked how a sheaf of papers all labeled "THE WILL OF MIGHTY ANKO" ended up on the refrigerator, or why pages would occasionally disappear whenever Anko wanted a favor and Sasuke was sick of washing dishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Anko secretly a Doctor Doom fan? _I'll never tell._ (... but yeah, the worksheets thing was totally inspired by a very long-ago conversation about Doom.)


	4. Anko and Itachi

"I can't believe you're taller than me now," Anko said, scowling at Itachi's back as he worked on mission reports on her floor. "If I'd known you had another growth spurt in you I would've dumped your ass a month ago." Damn, she hated dating guys who were taller than her, which was an unfortunately large selection of Konoha's adult male population, but she wasn't about to dump someone who could cook like Itachi.

"I can't help that," Itachi said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know - maybe it'll cut down on the cradle-robber jokes, at least," she said. "Though I guess you get it from the other end - hey, next person who makes a crack about you dating some old hag, you tell me and I'll kill them, okay? Then you can kill the next idiot who asks how my baby boyfriend is doing, it'll be the perfect system."

"No one's ever mentioned that to me," said Itachi, erasing a sentence.

"Huh?" Anko sat up and tried to get a look at Itachi's face to see if he was messing with her. "You don't get people ragging on you for being with a crazy snake lady? Seriously?"

"People don't often discuss personal issues with me," Itachi said. "I'm not sure why."

"Oh, now I know you're fucking with me," Anko said. "Geez, I _wonder_ why no one wants to gossip with an emotionally stunted idiot..." She flopped back on her couch and rolled around a little just for the hell of it. "You can be such a buzzkill, yanno?"

"If you don't want to associate with me, Anko-san, then -"

"That's not what I said and you know it, Mr. Convenient Booty Call." She stretched her left leg out and hooked her ankle over Itachi's shoulder so he would look up from the damn reports. "Look, this is what I'm talking about - you can't just go and offer to break up with me every time I complain about you to your face! First off, totally not healthy, second, don't even think about it, third - oh, forget it." She jumped up, stomped through the door to her room, and returned with a stack of slightly dusty books that she dumped on top of Itachi's paperwork. "Here, read these, okay?"

Itachi glanced at the first book. "'Eight Habits of Highly Effective Shinobi'?"

"Yeah, Kurenai loaned me a bunch of these a while ago, but I never got around to reading them - too many missions. And not really my style, anyway." She took that one off the stack; Itachi was an effective enough shinobi already. "They're supposed to be good for - uh - getting in touch with yourself, acting more human, shit like that. Just try them, all right? Maybe then you can figure out how to quit being such a closed-off weirdo." She reached over the books, draped her arm over his shoulder, leaned in close, then pinched his cheek and pulled it out of shape. "Got that, poker face?"

"Yes, Anko-san."

Looking back, she had to admit to herself that she deserved it when two months later Itachi told her, very solemnly, that she had unexamined abandonment issues from Orochimaru's defection and he would do his best to be a supportive partner as she worked through them.


	5. Sasuke and Haku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there was supposed to be another full side story that happens before this scene where Sasuke gets sent on a mission with Gai and his team, but I got so badly stuck on it that it's probably part of the reason I didn't work on the AU at all for three years, so - yeah. If I ever do manage to finish it I'll post it, or at least eventually post what I did get written at the end of all things, but in the meantime the stuff in it is still canon for "(Nice Dream)" so here are the important things you need to know:
> 
> 1) The title is "Uchiha Sasuke's Springtime of Youth";  
> 2) Sasuke has been an absolutely unbearable little shit to everyone for the first five months of the timeskip and it is a genuine miracle no one has killed him yet;  
> 3) Quality time with Gai, Rock Lee, and Tenten fighting off Sound nin can make anyone more bearable and by the end they're all kind of friends, and Neji and Sasuke are at least not actively trying to kill each other (okay, there might be a part where Sasuke says "No one cares about your stupid destiny, just decide what you're going to do and do it" because Neji needs to hear it from SOMEONE, even if that someone is Sasuke).

"Hey, pretty miss! Want to get some tea with me?"

"Thank you, but I have something else to do," Haku said, with a calm smile. "Perhaps another time."

The man opened his mouth, then shut it at Sasuke's glare, and the two of them walked on. Before something like that could happen again, Sasuke said, "Maybe if you cut your hair, that wouldn't happen so much," although he wasn't completely sure of that; Itachi kept his hair long and still never got mistaken for a girl. At least not for more than a second.

"It's all right - I really don't mind it," Haku said. "In fact, I was thinking that I might just be a girl all the time, here."

"Oh," Sasuke said. His mind raced for something more intelligent to say to Haku's bizarre pronouncement and came up with nothing.

"It feels more comfortable, somehow," Haku went on, perfectly serene. "There are some things I can do to make it easier, although I'll have to talk with the medical nin at the hospital first... Ah, does the idea bother you?"

Stuck with the impossibility of successfully lying to Haku, Sasuke fell back on honesty and said, "I don't know."

"I suppose it is a bit of an adjustment," said Haku, and they didn't talk for the rest of the walk to the training field. They didn't talk much while training, either; it was an awkward session all around, and for once Sasuke was glad to go home, even with Itachi there.

Dinner was cold noodles and some kind of soup with potatoes in it. It was good enough, but Haku's announcement still bothered Sasuke, and as he played with the leftover noodles, he said, "Itachi. Can boys become girls?"

Dead silence from the other side of the table; eventually Itachi said, "Have you been thinking about trying this for a while, or -"

"Not _me_ ," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. "It's Haku."

"Ah."

Sasuke glanced up and saw Itachi's expression flicker with something that might have been relief, which made Sasuke want to roll his eyes again. "He was saying he felt like being a girl around here," he said, "and that he might talk to the medics about it - anyway, is that normal?" There was Naruto's stupid technique, of course, but that was just a variation on a regular transformation, and only Naruto used it. Otherwise, Sasuke had been going through his memory all afternoon and all he had come up with was a vague memory from the mission to Iwa about Saeko's son who had been named after her sister, something which hadn't made any sense at the time and still didn't.

"Ah," Itachi said again. "Well, it isn't very common, but yes, sometimes there are people who aren't comfortable with their bodies, and they decide to change their bodies to fit the person that they feel they are. These people should be treated with the same respect as anyone else and referred to in the way they prefer; this is perfectly natural and nothing to be concerned about, and should not be a topic of gossip."

Itachi didn't make it sound natural; he sounded like he was reciting something he'd read in a handbook. It was better than no explanation at all, though, so Sasuke said, "Okay."

"If there's anything else you're curious about," Itachi said, with an odd note of anxiety in his voice, "one of my coworkers in ANBU is more knowledgeable, and she could -"

"Never mind, I get it."

Even so, he skipped out on training with Haku the next day and practiced with Rock Lee instead, which was less confusing but more exhausting. Sasuke managed to keep up with Lee for two more days, then decided he would rather deal with Haku than one more attempt to get him into a green jumpsuit; he gave Lee some kind of excuse after their last practice and went to Ichiraku that evening, when Haku would be working.

Haku didn't say anything about Sasuke avoiding their training when Sasuke sat down at Ichiraku. He smiled, but the kind of polite smile that he used on the guys who hit on him, not a real smile. "Is there anything I can get for you, Sasuke-kun?"

"No," Sasuke said. He hadn't touched a bowl of ramen since Naruto had left and he wasn't about to break that record; he didn't have any money on him, anyway. "Just - look, I don't care if you want to be a girl, as long as you don't -" He hesitated, trying to think of the right words. "- don't give up on training. All right?"

"I wasn't planning to," said Haku, but he - but she smiled more naturally this time. "Tomorrow, at the usual time?"

"Sure."


	6. Sasuke and Anko II

Anko crashed through the door, struck a pose, and announced, "So I heard you saying that you wanted to learn summoning!"

"Not from _you_ ," Sasuke said. "I was going to ask Kakashi."

"What, you think that tightass is going to let you near his precious puppies?" Anko stretched and then grabbed Sasuke's arm. "C'mon, I'm a good summoner and this is a once-in-a-lifetime offer - let's go hit one of the training fields, we're gonna need some space. Oh, you got any meat in the fridge? My girls prefer live prey, but you'll want to work up to that."

Sasuke gave up and let Anko drag him to one of the training fields with the fewest amount of trees, the package of beef that was supposed to be for that night's sukiyaki dripping slightly most of the way.

Once at the field, Anko whipped out a scroll and said, "Stay quiet while I'm talking and don't move till I tell you it's okay. Snakes are predators, and not the cuddly type like Kakashi's puppies - catch their attention in a bad way and they'll have you for lunch. Or just bite you and leave you to be something else's lunch, depending on who you get. I'm gonna call Saranda today - she's pretty good-natured, not too big, and not poisonous, but you still don't want to get on her bad side. I've had ribs broken that way, yanno." Anko slung the scroll over her back, bit her thumb, and touched it to the ground.

Sasuke had no trouble keeping still; the snake that appeared in a burst of smoke was big enough to stretch from one end of the training field to the other. It was longer than the block of apartments he lived in. Its head was bigger than _Sasuke_ and it was twisting around to look _directly at him_...

Its eyes moved to focus on Anko. "What's with the hatchling?" it said. "I thought you didn't like feeding us humans, Anko. Or did you have an egg of your own?"

"Hell no, he ain't mine," said Anko; she held her hand out, palm up, and the snake's tongue flickered delicately over it. "He's an apprentice, sort of - Uchiha Sasuke, registered Konoha genin. Brat, this is Saranda." Anko scratched between the scales along Saranda's cheek and mouthed _Meat! Now!_

Sasuke held out the package of beef. "A small offering for you," he said, straining to keep his voice steady.

Saranda moved her head, and her tongue flicked out again, over the beef. "A very small offering," she said, and Sasuke saw Anko tense up out of the corner of his eye. "But of fine quality. I accept," and the package was gone.

Sasuke half-expected that his hands would be gone with it, but they were still there, damp with sweat and beef juice; he lowered them, but didn't dare try to wipe them off with the snake still staring at him. "Uchiha Sasuke, hmm," she said. "Your name is familiar. He has one of those pairs of eyes that Orochimaru wants, doesn't he, Anko?"

"Yep," Anko said. "Dead set on getting him or the brat's brother, Sensei is. This one was hoping to sign a contract with you, get a little help keeping Orochimaru off his back - you in?"

Sasuke thought that he would rather have signed a summoning contract with a warren of useless fluffy rabbits than stand under Saranda's lidless gaze another moment, but just as the pressure of her stare grew unbearable, the snake's head abruptly dropped, and she looped herself loosely around both humans. "Oh, sure," she said, nudging Sasuke slightly with her nose while Sasuke tried not to fall over. "He tastes good and strong. Don't worry, hatchling - I don't like that Orochimaru. He's too free with the smaller snakes, always cheats them or gets them killed, and I lost half my last clutch to his experiments. You stick with me, and we'll see that he gets what's coming to him."

"That's my girl," said Anko, leaning into the snake's side and grinning. "Go Team Snake! Now - crap, where did the scroll go?"

Sasuke knew he should have waited for Kakashi.


	7. Kin and Haku

Kin was testing out a new way of braiding her hair - only because she had absolutely nothing better to do, locked up like she was - when she heard the guard outside greet someone, and then a familiar soft voice. "Kin-san?"

"Yeah, hi." She gave up on the stupid braid, stood, and stretched. "You're back early." Haku had just visited yesterday, and Kin hadn't expected another visit for a couple more days.

"I know - I'm afraid I have some bad news," Haku said.

Kin's stomach clenched momentarily, but she didn't let it show. "How much worse can living in a prison get?" she said, and leaned casually against the back wall of her cell. "Spit it out."

"Konoha has had agents trying to contact Hidden Sound to arrange for a possible exchange of prisoners for information, so you could return to your village. Unfortunately -" Haku lowered her eyes to the floor. "- it seems that they've had no success. No one they've met has been interested in negotiation."

"I could've told you that," Kin said, not quite as flippantly as she'd meant to say it. Not that she'd been expecting Orochimaru to give a damn about her or Zaku - she knew what was what, unlike Zaku with his self-important delusions - but hearing it direct from the enemy's mouth still stung a little.

"I'm so sorry," said Haku, and hell if she didn't sound like she meant it. Haku was so sincere it made Kin sick sometimes. "I've been talking with Ibiki-san and a few other people, but we're not sure what to do next - at first I tried to convince them to let the two of you free at the Sound border, but no one would agree to it."

"Of course not! Seriously, who do you think would do that?"

"I would," Haku said.

Kin didn't have a smart answer for that. She crossed her arms and scowled at Haku through the bars instead. "So, what are everyone else's bright ideas?"

"There aren't very many." Kin had hardly ever seen Haku without a smile, but Haku wasn't smiling now; in fact she looked downright concerned. "Only one or two people have brought up the most expedient option -"

That'd be execution. Why not? Konoha wasn't exactly at war, Kin had figured out from listening to Haku, but it was getting there, so no point wasting resources and people on two useless prisoners. Damnit.

"- but it's still difficult to come up with solutions that Ibiki-san and the others would be satisfied with." Haku was practically frowning now. That couldn't be a good sign. "I've already offered to act as - well, as a sort of guard, if you were released in the village, but it's not a very popular idea, yet."

"Wait, if we were _what_?"

"Released in the village," Haku said. "After all, I don't think you could do much harm to us, even if you escaped and went back to Sound..."

If Kin tried to go back to Sound after months of being Konoha's prisoner, she'd probably be killed on sight, and that would be if she got lucky.

"And we could certainly use more talented ninja," Haku said, her customary smile reappearing. "I think it would be the best solution all around, if you and Zaku-san decided to stay here and become Konoha shinobi... Well, as I said it's not a very popular idea, but I'm still trying to convince everyone. If you agreed to it, with a few conditions, I think that might help."

"You're actually a crazy person, aren't you," Kin said.

"I'll let you think it over," said Haku. "It would be a very big decision, after all. I need to see Ibiki-san now, but I'll come visit again in a couple of days, if that's all right. Please do consider the idea."

She went away again, and Kin growled. How the hell was she supposed to react to an offer like - like that? No one else in all the shinobi countries could possibly be dumb enough to ask imprisoned enemies to _join_ them - brainwash or illusion them into it, sure, but just _ask_? Stupid, soft idiot...

She didn't realize she'd said that last part aloud until the guard outside chuckled, and she glared at him. "What's so funny, huh?"

"Oh, nothing, really," the guard said. "I just find it a little funny hearing someone who killed three Cloud missing-nin yesterday get called 'soft,' I guess."

"What, that spoiled little princess?" Kin didn't believe it for a moment. "There's no way a bleeding heart like her could possibly -"

"Well, you can think what you want," the guard said, shrugging. "You're the one Haku comes in to talk to, after all. Me? After my shift, I'm going out with my buddies and toasting the girl who saved my ass in yesterday's raid."

"You're so full of it," Kin said, but it crossed her mind that she just might have to give Haku's offer some serious consideration after all.


	8. Sasuke and Itachi

Sasuke stared down his eighth home-made breakfast in a row.

"Is something wrong with it?" Itachi said.

"No..." Sasuke carefully tore off a bit of the soggy fried bread and choked it down. Why the hell was it so sweet? Did people really eat this for breakfast somewhere?

"Do you like it?"

"It's fine," Sasuke said. He focused on cutting up the slice of syrup-soaked bread into the smallest possible pieces so he wouldn't have to taste the sweetness as much. "Are you going back to work soon?"

"Sorry - you might be stuck with me for a while," Itachi said, with a faint smile as if he thought it was _funny_. "Yoshimoto's needed at the hospital, and we're waiting on an intelligence report from another team, anyway."

Left with no more bread to dissect, Sasuke swallowed another minuscule bite. One more day of experimental meals and he was going to permanently move into Naruto's place with Haku, where the worst he could be stuck with was instant ramen. "Didn't you have to rush back from your last mission?"

"Hurry up and wait," said Itachi, and Sasuke glanced up at the oddly wry tone in his voice. "Sometimes that's just how it is, particularly in ANBU. There are too many variables in a lot of situations to make accurate estimates of when something can be done or not, and so - you rush around only to end up waiting."

"That's stupid."

"That's part of shinobi life. And not the worst part - just a little frustrating sometimes." Itachi chewed thoughtfully on his first bite of the fried bread. "Hmm - maybe I did make it a little too sweet. Do you think Anko-san would like it? I think there's enough batter left to make her a few slices."

"Sure." Sasuke pressed down on one of the tiny bread squares, and syrup oozed out of it like slime from a squashed slug. Maybe, if he was lucky, Anko would like it enough to eat his share, too.


	9. Itachi, Jiraiya, and Naruto

Itachi was returning to Konoha from a scouting mission near Takigakure when one of Captain Hana's dragonfly summons caught him. "Evening, Captain!" it chirped. "You in a hurry?"

"Is there a problem at headquarters?"

"Nope!" The dragonfly's wings buzzed. "But we received a message from the Great Toad Sage asking for any recent information we have on Ame, and you're the last living operative who's been near the place. Could you go brief him real quick?"

"How far is he from my current location?"

"The message came from a little place called Mino near the border with Grass, south of here. Not real far, but if it's out of your way we can just send him your report instead."

Itachi considered it, then nodded and said, "I can manage it. Do you need anything before you return?"

"Nope! I got a nice big reward waiting for me at HQ, but thanks for the offer. Safe travels!" The dragonfly vanished, and Itachi changed course.

It was past midnight when he reached Mino and detected Jiraiya and Naruto's presence a short distance outside of town, in the forest. He was tired enough by then to feel the pull of the twin seals on his back and shoulder: Kabuto's drawing out weakness, Orochimaru's offering strength. He ignored them both and unmasked his chakra enough so that he wouldn't surprise Jiraiya, then followed their signatures to their campsite, where Naruto was encased in a lump of blankets on one side of a dying fire and Jiraiya was sitting with his back against a tree. He waved Itachi closer and said, "Welcome! Have a - oh. It's you, Itachi-kun."

"Is that a problem?"

"Er - no, no, of course not! Just a surprise. Sit down and let's talk about Ame."

It was tangential to the mission, but as Itachi pulled his crow mask off and sat close to Naruto he found himself asking, "Why aren't you staying in Mino itself?"

"Ha, well - it's a very small place, you know, only one inn, completely packed, and there may have been some tiny misunderstanding regarding a completely innocent remark to the innkeeper's daughter..."

On one hand, it was a shame that Sasuke hadn't been given the opportunity to train properly with one of the Sannin. On the other hand - at least he wasn't studying with Jiraiya. Too bad that Tsunade had chosen to leave Konoha to avoid politics; a solid grounding in medical jutsu could have been useful for Sasuke.

"Anyway, that's not important!" Jiraiya said. "What's the news from Ame?"

"Why are you interested in going there?"

Jiraiya lowered his voice and said, "It's nothing solid, but I've picked up some rumors that the leader of Akatsuki may be from that town - or even an important figure there. I've got few enough leads that this is one I just have to check out, and of course it's not as if I don't have some prior experience in the region..."

"Don't go."

"What?" Jiraiya puffed up with indignation, and the pile of blankets stirred. "Exactly who do you think I am? Are you saying the great sage Jiraiya-sama can't sneak into one small village?"

"It's not that I doubt your skills, Jiraiya-sama -" Very much. "- but the current leader of Amegakure has an uncanny ability to identify intruders immediately. Even I was only across the border for a few moments before being spotted, and I was alone. If it were only you, perhaps it might be worth the risk, but you are traveling with Naruto right now. Do you think it would be wise to walk into a possible Akatsuki stronghold with one of the people they're looking for?"

Jiraiya deflated. "Well - I suppose - when you put it like that... I wasn't planning to take him with me, of course, but it's not the best time to leave him alone, either, is it? It'll just have to wait."

"Wha's wrong?" drifted up from the blankets as Naruto sat up and blinked at them. "Izzat - Itachi-nii? You're here?"

"Hello, Naruto-kun," Itachi said. "Don't worry; everything's fine."

"'s Sasuke here, too? Can I come home?"

"Sorry - it's just me." Itachi leaned over and put his hand on Naruto's head, and Naruto gave him a sleepy smile. "I came to bring Jiraiya-sama some information, that's all. Are you doing well?"

"Yeah, 'm learning lots and stuff," Naruto said around a huge yawn. "Gonna get super strong..."

"I'm glad to hear it." Konoha - and Sasuke - had been far too quiet without Naruto around, but it was good that he wasn't having too much of a hard time away from the village.

"Well, you'd better get back to sleep, kid," Jiraiya said. "You worked hard today and you've got more to do tomorrow, so you need your rest."

"'Kay."

"Please keep working hard and growing stronger," Itachi said.

"'Kay - you too," Naruto mumbled before lying back down, rolling over, and starting to snore.

"Ah, he's a good kid," Jiraiya said fondly. "Well - a real handful, actually, with all that energy! But what good shinobi wasn't, at that age? Er - I didn't mean - just generally speaking, of course there are always exceptions..."

"I'm not offended, Jiraiya-sama." Jiraiya surely had much more experience at recognizing good shinobi than Itachi; he had trained the Fourth Hokage, after all. And while there were many ways of being a shinobi, very few of them could be considered good. "If you don't require anything else, I should be going."

"What, so soon? It's already late - why don't you spend the night here and get some rest yourself?"

"I'm afraid I have to get this intelligence back to headquarters as soon as possible, but thank you for the offer." Itachi stood and bowed slightly. "I hope my information was useful to you."

"If you're sure..." Jiraiya had an oddly lost expression; he looked as if he wanted to say something more, but settled on, "Thanks for the visit, Itachi-kun, and have a safe trip home."

"I will."

It was a long run from Mino to Konoha, though a little shorter than the way Itachi had been traveling, and it gave him time to think. He ought to tell Sasuke about the brief meeting; Sasuke would want to know how Naruto was doing, even outside of his frequent letters. And yet...

_Itachi-nii? You're here? ... Can I come home?_

Perhaps it would be all right if he was a little selfish and kept this memory to himself, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I just really wanted to write Jiraiya and Itachi interacting again, okay. They're such different characters, plus I've always assumed (since the reveal, anyway) that Itachi was Jiraiya's source of information on Akatsuki. Mostly because if he wasn't, what the actual fuck were you doing all that time, Itachi. WORST DOUBLE AGENT EVER.


	10. Kakashi and Sasuke

"This is boring," Sasuke said.

Under the forehead protector, Obito's eye twitched. Kakashi had been copying techniques since before the brat was born, was graciously sharing them as befitted a teacher, and this was the thanks he got? "All right, maybe not every jutsu I've picked up is as splashy as the water dragons," he said, "but smaller or more subtle techniques can be unexpectedly useful, you know. It's good to have a wide variety of techniques you can easily use, so you don't rely too much on just one or two."

"It's still boring. I want to learn something better. A stronger chidori, or - anything!"

"Admit it," Kakashi said, "you wish you'd gone with Orochimaru right about now, don't you?"

Sasuke's sullen face became a glower. "I didn't say that."

No, but if he hadn't been thinking it - and probably a lot more than once over the past year or so - Kakashi would eat one of Gai's jumpsuits. Without washing it first. Teaching was the worst job he'd ever had, and that included a hell of a lot of nasty ANBU work.

He allowed himself a sigh and sat down in the shade of the hill he'd created in the training field. Sasuke kept standing - fine, let him suffer in the hot sunlight. "Listen to me," Kakashi said. "I promised you I wasn't going to neglect your training anymore, and I intend to honor it. All right, when I said that I thought Naruto and Sakura would be here to train with us -" And of all the people he'd never thought he would miss in this life, those two ranked surprisingly high. "- but you can bet that whatever they're studying with the Sannin right now, they have to work on the same kinds of basic jutsu and knowledge that I'm trying to drill into you. It might not be as exciting as the chidori, but without a strong foundation, how can you improve or create new techniques? You have to know what's already been done before you can do something new."

Sasuke's scowl deepened for an instant, then faded into his usual irritated look. "You could at least try to make it interesting," he said. "I'm not an Academy student anymore; I can handle more advanced knowledge."

"Hey, I promised training, not miracles. Sit down and let's talk about chakra natures a little more."


	11. Kurenai and Anko

Kurenai worried about Anko. It was probably her worst habit, as Anko hardly needed her worrying, but it was a hard habit to break, especially when Anko was dating - well, whenever she was dating. And even more so when she was dating someone who was rumored to have killed his family, almost single-handedly taken down Sasori of the Red Sand, and never dated anyone seriously before Anko.

The direct approach, she decided, would be best.

"I was just wondering how things are going with Itachi-kun," she said while they were out on their usual Saturday night bender.

"They are going great," Anko said as she poured sake for them both. "Fantastic. Swell! ... never let me say that again. But yeah, it's all good."

"Really," Kurenai said. "It just seems like - you wouldn't be very compatible."

Anko gave her a sideways look. "Compatible how? It's been like five years, that seems pretty compatible to me."

"When's the last time you had sex?" Kurenai said, throwing circumspection to the wind as she sipped her sake. They were on the third bottle, there was no point in being shy.

"Wednesday night, with Aoba." Anko grimaced. "Don't bother judging me, I was going for Maito Gai to see how well the youth stuff holds up in bed, but that guy's got a thing for Hatake you could see from the moon. And well, I was ready to go and Aoba was right there, so I figured why not fuck around a bit..."

"And Itachi-kun is _okay_ with this?" Kurenai could already feel a headache coming on.

"Yeah, sure he is." Anko poured herself another cup and tossed it back, then folded her arms on the bar and rested her head on them. "We've got a good thing going, I keep telling you - he cooks, I provide entertainment, we relieve each other's stress whenever we're both around, it's great. Man, if I'd known you could have a relationship like that, I would've tried it ages ago." She looked up at Kurenai and grinned. "Probably with you."

"I don't think I'm quite easygoing enough for that," Kurenai said primly, but she pulled Anko's head up off the bar and smiled. "Thank you for the thought, though."

"Thanks to you, too," Anko said, and they both knew it wasn't for getting her head off the bar.


	12. Sasuke and Itachi II

He lunged through shadows at Ukon's throat and the kunai slid in without resistance. The blood glittered in broken moonlight on his hand, on Ukon's face, but it was Sakura staring up at him with dead eyes, no, the blood was dripping over Naruto's cheek-marks, no, it was running down his hands, Itachi's hands -

Sasuke shuddered awake, staring into the darkness with the sharingan seeking out threats. Nothing - it was just a dream, it was that stupid old dream coming back. Damn. It hadn't troubled him for months; why now, of all times?

The clock blinked as it rolled over from 3:04 to 3:05. He didn't have to be up for another couple of hours, but if he tried to sleep again the forest and Ukon would be waiting for him. He might as well make himself some tea and work on reading that scroll Kakashi had loaned him.

The light in the main room came on while he was pulling on a less sweaty shirt, and he paused. What was Itachi doing awake? He was supposed to be on part-time guard duty for the next week, he didn't need to get up early for that.

Sasuke went out and found Itachi heating water. "Good morning," Itachi said. "I was making tea - do you want any?"

"It's three in the morning."

"I have a lot to do today, so I wanted to get an early start." He passed Sasuke a mug, and Sasuke took it automatically. "What about you?"

He had to be lying. He deserved a lie in return, but instead Sasuke said, "Bad dream."

"Ah."

They sat at the table at the same time, and as Itachi poured the tea, he asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Not in a million years. "Just a bad dream," and then his stupid exhausted mouth kept going. "About the Sound nin. The ones that were hunting me and Tsunade, when - when we were coming back."

"The ones that you killed?"

"I didn't -" The mug trembled in Sasuke's hands. "Did Sakura tell you that?" Damnit, damnit, _damnit_.

"No," Itachi said. "I knew as soon as you returned."

Maybe he wasn't really awake. Maybe it was just a new, sick twist on the old nightmare, because he'd never told Itachi about Sakon and Ukon, he'd never even planned to tell Itachi, the last thing he wanted was Itachi knowing that he could kill... "Why didn't you say anything?" Why hadn't he been able to keep his mouth shut?

"It's a personal matter, the first time you kill someone. I know that it's ugly. And I -" Itachi turned the cup around in his hands, watching the steam. "I understand, if it's something you don't want to talk about with me."

It was funny, in a way. It was all like one big joke. _Oh, it's fine to murder our entire family, it's business as usual, but talk about how it feels to kill someone? No, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I_ understand _!_ Sasuke gulped tea just to keep from laughing out loud and choked on it, scalding his mouth and the inside of his nose.

"Sasuke -"

"I'm fine!" He swallowed the tea and got up. "I'm going back to bed." Better the dream than facing Itachi like this, when he couldn't control his tongue.

"You haven't told Naruto, have you?"

Sasuke dumped the rest of the tea in the sink - he'd be tasting it in the back of his mouth for hours, anyway - and said, "You're right. I don't want to talk about it with you."

He didn't look at Itachi as he went back to his room. He didn't want to see Itachi's face after he'd said that, either.


	13. Haku and Sasuke

Haku had only visited Sasuke's apartment once or twice before, but she had no difficulty in finding it again; she was curious about Sasuke's reason for asking her to meet him there, rather than at Ichiraku or Naruto's apartment or a training field. When she knocked at the door, she expected Sasuke to answer, but it was Sasuke's older brother Itachi who opened it. Haku didn't allow a hint of her surprise show on her face. "Good morning, Itachi-san," she said. "Is Sasuke here?"

If Itachi was surprised to see her, he didn't let it show, either. "Yes, he's still here," he said. "Did the two of you have plans?"

"Yeah, we're training," Sasuke said, from somewhere out of Haku's line of vision.

Itachi stepped back from the door and turned his head. "I thought that we were going to train together today," he said. "I took the day off..."

"It's a different kind," Sasuke said as he appeared at the door, edging his way past Itachi. "We can train later. Come on, Haku."

"Perhaps after you're done, you can both come back here for snacks," Itachi suggested.

"That would be -"

"Yeah, maybe," Sasuke said, and he took off down the stairs, forcing Haku to follow with only a quick wave in farewell to Itachi.

At first Sasuke set a pace too swift for conversation as they headed for one of their usual training grounds, but he took an abrupt wrong turn a couple of blocks away from the apartment and slowed down enough that Haku could say, "That seemed a little harsh."

Sasuke didn't answer.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

After a few minutes, Sasuke took another turn, and the pair of them ended up in front of a closed and locked gate, where banners with the same fanlike symbol that was on most of Sasuke's shirts hung limp and faded. Sasuke was staring at the gates with an unreadable expression; Haku was about to ask what this place was when Sasuke said abruptly, "It's okay to go in, but we have to go over the wall," and he jumped up to the top of the gates.

Haku swallowed her questions and followed him, not without a little nervousness; her reputation in the village wasn't so assured that she could afford to get caught breaking any rules. No traps or alarms activated at her entrance, however, and Sasuke led her down empty, narrow streets until they reached a large house that must have been quite elegant when inhabited, but now appeared only weatherbeaten and a little dilapidated. Sasuke hesitated a moment before pushing open the door and starting to go inside.

"Wait," said Haku. "Are you certain that it's all right?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, "it's my house." He vanished inside.

At that point Haku was ready to say something very cutting to Sasuke about how even the best shinobi could be too mysterious for their own good, especially when it came to their friends, but that would require being close enough for Sasuke to hear her. She sighed, entered the house, and found Sasuke at the overgrown garden in its center. He was staring into a small, algae-covered pond that might once have held koi; she stood beside him, crossed her arms, and said, "Would you like to tell me what we're doing here instead of training?"

Sasuke glared at the pond in silence for a minute. "This used to be my home," he said at last. "All the Uchiha lived in this compound, but this was where my family lived, me and my mother and father - and Itachi."

Haku waited for him to keep talking. She'd gotten a lot of practice at that.

"Itachi killed them five years ago," Sasuke said. "All of them. Someone helped him, I don't know who, but he was the one - he killed my parents. Everyone but me. And I don't know _why_!" He took a deep breath, his fists clenched. "I've been trying to figure it out with Naruto - and Sakura, now - but it's been more complicated than I thought. That's why I let Orochimaru - why I didn't turn him in at first. And why I'm telling you, if you'll help."

"I see," Haku said, her mind swiftly sorting through what little she had previously heard about Itachi and fitting it in with Sasuke's revelation. It certainly explained why Naruto had given up explaining with "it's just kind of complicated."

"You don't have to," Sasuke said, though his expression suggested otherwise. "I know what you're thinking - 'oh, there's no way he did it,' 'he must have had a reason,' 'the Hokage wouldn't let him stay if he did it' - that's what everyone says, they all -"

"I'll help you."

"- thinking he's so nice and perfect, if they don't - what?"

"I'll help you," Haku said. Sasuke usually slid out of or recoiled from any gestures of affection, but she took his hand anyway. "Sasuke - I barely know your brother, and you're someone who saved my life, even when I thought I didn't want to be saved. Of course I'm going to help you, as much as I can."

Sasuke stared at her, looking too shocked even to pull his hand away. "Really?"

"Yes." She squeezed his hand once, then released it. "I don't know if I can do very much, since there are still people who don't trust me, but whatever I can do to help, I will."

Sasuke was still staring; then - he didn't smile, but a light came into his face that Haku hadn't seen in it since Naruto had left. "Thanks," he said. He looked around and added, "We should probably go now, before - in case someone gets suspicious. But thanks."

"Of course," Haku said, and she let Sasuke lead the way to their usual training ground.


	14. Anko and Itachi II

Anko knew it had been a bad mission the moment Itachi walked through her door; his face was too still, and she could smell it on him - fresh blood, old blood, death, someone else's fear. "I'll get some tea started," she said.

"I killed my family."

"Okay, maybe something stronger than tea."

"This isn't a joking matter," Itachi said, and the rawness in his voice was enough to stop her before she reached the cupboard with the good tea and the expensive sake.

Instead she sat back down on the couch and waved him over to sit with her. He did, but he was sitting as stiff and upright as a puppet getting yanked around by a puppet master, and it irritated her so much that she sprawled out with one leg across his knees and the other stretched out behind his back just to be contrary. "All right, go ahead and talk," she said. "Nothing to worry about, I had Tassa check for bugs earlier and the place is clean. Relatively. Eh, you know what I mean."

"You seem to be taking this very calmly, Anko-san." Itachi's voice was calm on the surface, anything but beneath, with a terrible edge.

"I have ears, you idiot," Anko said, because the day she was scared of some teenager's voice would be the day she took up rice farming. "People have been gossiping for over five years about whether there really was a missing-nin who could take out the entire Uchiha clan without breaking a sweat, and the general consensus? No." She kneed him in the back, but gently. "Trust me, if that was gonna be a deal-breaker, I'd never have invited you over for tea in the first place."

"Then why would you - why wouldn't that be -"

"Talking to Orochimaru's ex-apprentice, here." Fuck, she couldn't stand watching him slump like that; she wrapped her legs around him and scooted close enough to tilt his head up, turn it around, and lean her forehead against his. "I know a little about doing shit you know you'll regret. At least you're here, taking care of your brother, being loyal to the village - unless you're not, in which case you know I'll fucking kill you, right?"

"I'm definitely not betraying the village," said Itachi, without even the hint of a smile. He did turn to lean against her a little, though, so she counted that as half a point for her awesome on-the-fly therapy skills.

"Just checking," she said. "Now. You wanna talk about it?"

He closed his eyes and didn't answer for a while; she was just thinking about dumping him on the floor and getting a snack when he said, very quietly, "I didn't have a choice. They would have killed Sasuke."

"Whoa. _Whoa_. I feel like there's something you maybe haven't mentioned about your family, like that they were secretly Jashinists or -"

"No, not the clan - not directly." He took a deep breath, still not opening his eyes, so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "The council. ANBU."

She waited, because this still explained exactly shit.

"The clan was going to rebel," he said. "The Hokage wanted to negotiate, but if that didn't work, the entire clan was to be executed. Everyone. I had to choose, the clan or the village, and Sasuke - he didn't know anything, he was too young. I couldn't - I had help, of a kind, but I was the one who chose. I killed them all. I had to, to protect Sasuke."

"Okay," Anko said. "Okay, I get it." Fuck, that sure cleared up a lot. She could smell Danzo all over that brilliant idea. No wonder Sasuke had always been such a jumpy little brat around Itachi.

"My parents didn't even try to fight me," and his voice cracked, of course it would crack because he was barely eighteen and five years ago he'd been thirteen, and one day when the time was right there were going to be some really fucking sorry council members getting acquainted with a few of Anko's special pets. Right now she had to settle for keeping herself wrapped around her stupid, horrible boyfriend, stroking his back and making useless "ssh" noises at him even though he wasn't actually crying. He was so the type who'd think he didn't deserve to cry. Idiot.

"Don't tell Sasuke," he said at last. "Please. He didn't know what the clan was planning, and he loved our family - please don't tell him."

Anko stopped patting his back. "Well, that sounds like a recipe for getting poison in your rice balls."

"It doesn't matter. Just - please don't tell him anything that I've said."

She could still feel the tenseness in his shoulders, stiff and defensive. "Sure, sure," she said. "I won't say a word, it's your funeral. You ready for some tea yet?"

She never asked him what his mission had been that day. Some things even she didn't want to know.


	15. Haku and Ino

Haku opened the door to the flower shop and was greeted with the scent of lilies, thick and sweet; then the sight of Ino, her pale hair shining as she wove the white flowers into a wreath, until she looked up and waved at Haku. "Haku-san, come on in!" she said cheerfully. "It's been way too long - hey, can you give me a hand with these? We got this huge order and Mom had to go help some of her old genin team on a mission and Dad's totally busy with some classified stuff, I'm like, dying here all by myself..."

"Of course, I would be happy to help."

They worked together for a while in silence before Ino said, "So, Dad said you asked him about getting work as a shinobi - is that for real?"

"Yes. I've been thinking that since my arm has been better for a while now, I'd like to take the chuunin exams and become a proper Konoha ninja..." Haku trimmed the stem of a lily and caught the excess length before it fell, then handed it to Ino. "Is there a problem?"

"No, no way! You're like, really strong - it's a total waste for you to be stuck in a ramen stand all day. It's just..." Ino hesitated. "Dad said you were going to try for a position with T&I if you made chuunin, and that - it doesn't really seem to suit you, Haku-san."

"Ah, really?" Haku said. She picked up a bare frame for another wreath and began to weave greenery among the wires, the leaves cool and pliable in her hands.

"I - I'm not saying anything against my dad," said Ino, fussing with the lilies. "But like - okay, he told me about you helping already with those people from Sound, not the classified details or anything, just that you talked with them. And that's really nice, but it's - it's not always like that, you know? Dad doesn't have to do the physical stuff because of our clan techniques, but I know what they have to do there sometimes. So - it just doesn't seem like it'd be a good job for you."

"I see."

Neither of them spoke for another few minutes as the wreaths took shape.

"I'd like to make it different," Haku said, and Ino's hands stilled. "There are worse places to be interrogated than Konoha, but still, I think that it's more effective, to use ways that aren't - to talk to people, and get them to trust you, and to trust them, too. Perhaps it's a little naive of me, but that's what I would like to do, if I can. If I could help at all..."

"Oh," Ino said. "Well..." She smiled suddenly, wide and bright. "Then you should go for it, Haku-san, and don't hesitate! If it's you, I think you can definitely change things."

Haku couldn't answer for a moment, bowing her head over the wreath she was working on; then with some effort she looked up and smiled back at Ino. "Thank you," she said. "I'll do my best."


	16. Sasuke and Itachi III

"Let's go to the public baths together."

Sasuke didn't even bother looking up from the letter he was reading. "We have a shower." The apartment's shower was tiny and prone to running out of hot water at inopportune moments, but it worked well enough that Sasuke had never felt the need to go to the public bathhouse unless Naruto was dragging him along to peek or something. Which hadn't been a problem for almost two years.

"I think that it would be a nice family bonding experience," Itachi said.

"Did you get that out of those books Anko gave you?" Sasuke would have sworn a bloody and painful vengeance on Anko for loaning Itachi all those self-help books, except that he was pretty sure she regretted it as much as he did.

"It will be pleasant and relaxing," said Itachi, which wasn't exactly an answer. "We haven't bathed together in a long time, after all..."

"So what?"

"Let's go to the baths."

Somehow, despite Sasuke's determination otherwise, he ended up at the bathhouse with Itachi and an armful of towels and soap. "This is stupid," he said, just to make sure Itachi didn't get the wrong idea. Itachi ignored him to pay the entrance fee, and Sasuke resigned himself to an evening of embarrassment.

It wasn't too bad at first, when they were just stripping and putting their stuff in lockers, but by the time they settled down to clean up before getting in the bath, the muttering had started.

"Aren't those the -"

"- younger one helped Orochimaru - yes, _that_ Orochimaru, the one who -"

"- one of those ANBU types, you know what they -"

Sasuke scrubbed furiously at a perfectly clean patch of skin on his left leg. He'd known this was a terrible idea, but no, Itachi still had to go and drag him out in public so they could _both_ get stared at and whispered about like they were freaks. That was really how Sasuke had wanted to spend the evening, when he could have just stayed home and showered and been re-reading the latest letters from Naruto and Sakura by now. Stupid Itachi and his stupid, completely hopeless attempts to act like the two of them could ever be a normal family again. He would have been better off leaving with Orochimaru than staying to live through this.

"I heard _he_ was the one who killed -"

"- ran around with that kid, the demon -"

"I can't believe they have the guts to -"

"Sasuke? Do you want any help washing your back?"

Interrupted in his seething, Sasuke blinked and looked over at Itachi. "What?"

"Do you want me to wash your back?" Itachi said.

Sasuke stared at him and felt his face get hotter and hotter, sensing the eyes of everyone else in the room fixed directly on the two of them. Finally he managed to say, "No! I can do it myself, I'm not five anymore."

"I know," said Itachi, and he went back to washing his hair. A moment later he said thoughtfully, "It's too bad, you were cute when you were little. You always wanted me to play with you..."

"I was never -!" Sasuke stopped himself just in time, and thought longingly about how if he killed Itachi now, it would probably be considered self-defense from death by humiliation and no one in the bathhouse would argue otherwise. He settled for muttering, "Anyway, you were always too busy."

"I know," Itachi said again, and mercifully he didn't say anything else until they had rinsed off and actually gotten in the bath, settling into a corner away from most of the other bathers - maybe Itachi had noticed the whispering for once. Sasuke had sunk into the hot water as deeply as he could, hoping that no one would pay any attention to him, when against Sasuke's unspoken wishes Itachi said, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"For being so busy. Even as a genin, it seemed like I was always busy."

"Pulling weeds?" It was the first genin mission that came to Sasuke's mind; his arms were still sore from helping someone with their garden earlier that day. Weed-pulling apparently used a completely different set of muscles than most shinobi exercises.

"Among other things," Itachi said, with a trace of a smile. "I didn't mind those kind of missions, though. They were so different from the war..."

"The Third Shinobi War?" Sasuke said, trying to remember the dates he'd learned and doing some quick calculations. "You weren't old enough to fight in that."

Itachi didn't answer at once; he leaned back against the edge of the bath and looked at the wall mural for a minute, but not as if he were really seeing it. "It was a hard war, especially at the end," he said. "If you were able to hold a weapon, you could fight... It wouldn't happen that way now."

"But - you would have been -" Sasuke couldn't complete the thought, at least not out loud, but Itachi didn't seem to have heard him. He was still looking through the wall mural, and Sasuke watched him with a strange, heavy feeling in his stomach.

He'd never thought much about the Third Shinobi War beyond what he learned at the academy, reasons and dates and battles. It had been over before he was born, and people didn't talk about it much; its end had been overshadowed by the Kyuubi's attack and the death of the Fourth Hokage. He had never realized that Itachi had fought in it. Other people he knew must have fought in it, too - his parents would have fought, and Shisui, and Anko and Kakashi and Gai and whoever Naruto's parents had been and Jiraiya and even Orochimaru before he'd turned traitor.

_What does your brother love above all else?_

How could Itachi love a village that would put him on a battlefield when he was four years old? Maybe Sasuke had gotten it wrong somehow, or something had happened in the war that had made Itachi think it was perfectly normal to kill most of his family and then act like nothing was wrong...

"It's still a shame that I was so busy, though," Itachi said, breaking Sasuke's chain of thought before he could follow it any further. "I would have liked to spend more time with you when you were still cute."

"Shut up."


	17. Sasuke and Hinata

"Um - excuse me, S-Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke looked up from the scroll on genjutsu that he was reading and saw a vaguely familiar girl standing in front of him; she had short, dark hair and pale Hyuuga eyes, and he was sure she'd been in his class at the Academy. What was her name again? Right... "Hinata?"

"Oh, y-you remembered me," she said, her cheeks turning pink. "I didn't think you would..."

With some dismay, Sasuke saw that she had a letter in one hand. Between that and the blush - damn. Another one. Since his latest growth spurt, they'd been worse than all the other people normally staring at him. "What do you want?" he said.

"Um, I-I was just wondering if - if it's not too much trouble - could you please send this letter to N-N-Naruto-kun?"

Sasuke blinked. That was a change. "Why don't you send it yourself?"

"I would, but - but he's traveling, so I don't know how." Hinata looked down, and her fingers tightened on the envelope in her hand, creasing it slightly. "I thought - since you're his best friend, you'd know where he was s-so you could write him, and it - um - it wouldn't further compromise the security of his location..."

The last bit sounded like something she'd memorized in school, but it was good thinking; Sasuke found himself approving.

"A-anyway, could you please send it," she said, "if - if you don't mind, and it isn't too much trouble..." She suddenly bit her lip and looked up, directly into Sasuke's eyes. "No, I mean - even if it's troublesome, please send him this letter! I want to encourage him while he's training, no matter what! So - um - w-would you please..." Her voice trailed off into nothing as she stared at the ground again, her face completely red.

Sasuke reached out and took the letter out of her hand before she tensed up so much that the envelope tore. "I'll send it," he said. He wasn't sure if Naruto would remember who Hinata was or not, but Naruto wouldn't care; he would just take it as a sign that he was finally getting popular.

Hinata gave Sasuke a brief, brilliant smile, and then fled so swiftly that she nearly knocked the scroll out of his hands.

_Weird girl_ , he thought, and went back to studying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter! Just one more to go and some beta-ing, and then - actual glacially slow "(Nice Dream)" updates shall commence!


	18. Kakashi, Itachi, and Sasuke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this final scene has been jossed to hell, but you know what - if someone wanted us to know that Kakashi had the mangekyou sharingan before the timeskip, maybe someone should have showed him with it, _Kishimoto_. Anyway, AU is now even more AU, oh no, whatever, I have a great plan for Tobidara stuff and gods willing I will even make it that far. XD

Even the scent of the leaf-mould was perfect: faint, dank, not overpowering, the slightest hint of a sharp vinegar smell to it that you didn't get in the forests around Konoha. Kakashi had to admire the thoroughness of it, at least until the rock hit him in the side of the head - _damn! Blind spot!_ \- and he went sprawling with his face buried in the ground and the thick scent of the leaf-mould mingling with stone dust.

Hands grabbed and threw him, and he crashed into another boulder, blinded and coughing. He sat up, blinking dust out of his good eye, and saw Rin beside him, but not - "Obito?"

"Rin... Kakashi... Are you all right?"

He scrambled towards Obito's weak voice with arms and legs that were too short, damn damn damn, and it didn't matter, he was too late, half of Obito's face was bloody and the other half...

But even as he tried to move the rock that was crushing his best friend, the Kusa forest faded into familiar grass, trees, the memorial stone, and Uchiha Itachi's attempt at a concerned face. "How was it?" Itachi asked.

"Good. Very good," Kakashi said, strategically choosing to lean against one of the posts near the memorial stone before his knees decided that they were still back in Kusagakure territory and gave out. "Excellent detail. Obito's hair was a little shorter than that, though. And his face was a bit rounder." He didn't mention that Obito had looked a little too much like Uchiha Shisui, because he had gotten used to being alive most of the time, even if it meant putting up with the last two Uchiha in the village on a daily basis.

"I apologize," said Itachi. "My memories of Obito aren't very clear."

Kakashi waved the apology off. "It was still good." He paused, squinted out of Obito's eye, and said, "Not good enough, I guess. Any change?"

"I'm afraid not." Itachi shrugged. "Perhaps the genjutsu wasn't strong enough, or ended too soon. I'm not sure what's going wrong."

At least he had enough tact not to openly suggest that the problem was in Obito's eye, but that wasn't saying much. "Well, maybe what we need to do is move to the next level. If ordinary genjutsu won't do the job..."

"Tsukuyomi," Itachi said. "I'm not sure that would be wise, Kakashi-san. From my reading, it can cause severe mental damage that would be difficult for most medics to treat. If Tsunade-sama had remained in the village, perhaps, but at present -"

"I wasn't aware that you'd come out here to baby-sit me," Kakashi said, and took just a little bit of satisfaction in the way Itachi's emotionless mask slipped for a moment to show his irritation. "I'll live through it, I promise. Or is it - how's your eyesight been lately, Itachi?"

That definitely got under Itachi's skin; he frowned and said, "My right eye is unaffected. The left has begun to lose focus at forty meters, but the first-level sharingan is enough to compensate for now."

"Good, good, then you can waste another few meters on me," Kakashi said, forcing a smile and stepping away from the post. "Unless you have a better idea?"

"Very well," said Itachi, after a long pause, and the tomoe of his sharingan expanded into the mangekyou's blades.

The world inverted into black and grey and streaked reddish-orange, the trees of Kusa outlined in sketchy white. Kakashi could see out of his left eye this time, but there was a terrible grinding pain in it as it pulled at what little chakra he had left; all of his exposed skin was burning, scraped raw from the fighting. Rin was kneeling by Obito, holding his hand, but the rocks around them were shifting with the enemy's jutsu and Kakashi reached for her to pull her out.

Rin hesitated. "Obito..."

"It's all right - go!"

Kakashi grabbed her hand and yanked her through the narrowing gap in the rocks even as she reached back for Obito, screaming his name. She collapsed against Kakashi and he reached for Obito but the stones were crashing together over Obito's bloody, smiling face and he had to jump away and beneath it all a deep voice - Itachi's voice, his own voice, there was no difference in the black and red world - was whispering _this is your fault, if you hadn't abandoned him you could have saved him, you killed him_ -

The landscape warped, redrew itself, and he was standing above Rin and Obito on shaky legs again, pulling Rin out again, watching the ground swallow his best friend again as that voice whispered in the depths of his mind.

Warp. Redraw. Fail. _Your fault._

Warp. Redraw. Fail. _Obito..._

Warp. Redraw. Fail. _Lower than trash._

Warp. Redraw. Reach for Rin and yank her out of the rocks and Obito's white smile smeared with grey blood shattered into green and blue and black.

"-kashi! Hey! Kakashi, what's wrong?"

Kakashi blinked and squinted, forcing Obito's eye shut; the world was too vivid and yet washed out at the same time, each detail bright and clear but difficult to put together. That certainly hadn't been Itachi's frantic voice, however, and the red-eyed face staring at him wasn't Itachi's, either. He managed to croak, "Sasuke?"

"Are you all right?" Sasuke said.

Kakashi felt like he'd fought the entire Third Shinobi War again several times over, which was about as far from all right as you could get. It was worse than physical exhaustion; even his soul, or whatever he had that passed for one, ached as if Obito were still dying in front of him.

Fortunately Sasuke didn't wait for him to answer, but immediately turned on Itachi, whose eyes had already darkened back to the usual black. "What the hell did you do to him?" Sasuke demanded.

"It was - I'll go get a medic," said Itachi. "Kakashi-san, don't try to move -" There was a laugh, Kakashi didn't think he could move if he tried. "- and Sasuke, please stay with him, I'll be right back." 

He vanished, and Kakashi let himself collapse against the post at his back (when had he backed up that far?) and slide down to sit in the grass; his limbs felt about as solid and dependable as flowing water. Damn. Not that he was going to admit it, but maybe this one time he should have listened to Itachi.

Sasuke crouched in front of him, his sharingan still on. "What happened?" he said. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Kakashi said, which wasn't technically a lie. "Just tired." Even talking was an effort.

"What was he trying to do? Was it because of your sharingan?"

"Yes," said Kakashi, and realized it had been exactly the wrong thing to say when Sasuke's expression went from his normal scowl to murderous. "Not like that! It was training. Training! That's all."

Sasuke didn't look convinced. "If he tries to do anything to you again, I'll -"

"He's not trying to kill me, I swear. It was just training." Well, that was something Kakashi really needed, his student trying to become his bodyguard. He found the energy for a sigh and opened Obito's eye. "Speaking of which - any difference?"

Sasuke shook his head.

"Damn," Kakashi said, and passed out.


End file.
